Flanagan's Running Club – Issue 43
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Flanagan's Running Club – Issue 43 Introduction The first rule of Flanagan's Running Club is everyone should be telling everyone they know about Flanagan's Running Club! After all, sharing is caring. Details of how to sign up is in the epilogue. There is no need to panic, there is no actual running involved, it is not a running club in that sense. The title is made up from extending the title of my favourite book – Flanagan’s Run by Tom McNab. It’s a new year, and this brings a few changes to what is included and a shuffle around of some items. So, sit back, grab a cup of coffee (or beer or wine or whatever), and enjoy the read. On This Day – 12th January 1866 – The Royal Aeronautical Society is formed in London. 1895 – The National Trust is founded in the United Kingdom. 1915 – The United States House of Representatives rejects a proposal to require states to give women the right to vote. 1932 – Hattie Caraway becomes the first woman elected to the United States Senate. Memorial Day (Turkmenistan) National Youth Day (India) Prosecutor General's Day (Russia) Zanzibar Revolution Day (Tanzania) Thinker, Failure, Solider, Jailer. An Anthology of Great Lives in 365 Days Lorna Wishart, b. 1911, d. 2000 Lorna Wishart, who died aged eighty-eight, was a ravishing beauty who broke the hearts of both Laurie Lee and Lucian Freud and inspired some of their best work. Lorna Wishart had two brothers and six almost equally striking sisters. Of these, Kathleen became the mistress and later wife of Jacob Epstein, and Mary the wife of the South African poet Roy Campbell. Another sister married a French fisherman – “like Jean Marais, only better looking” – while another managed to seduce her idol T.E. Lawrence before retiring to a cottage with a lady named Philip de Winton. But Lorna was the loveliest of all; tall, lean and feline, with dark hair and enormous deep blue eyes, she exerted an extraordinary seductive power over men. She was, as her daughter Yasmin later described her, ‘a dream for any creative artist… savage, wild, romantic, and completely without guilt.’ The writer Laurie Lee, who met her in 1937 on a beach in Cornwall, never stood a chance. He was playing his violin and Lorna beckoned him over, saying: “Boy, come and play for me.” Lee soon found himself caught up in a delirium of passion and, to impress her, went to fight in Spain as a Republican volunteer, albeit briefly – Lorna soon engineered his return. She then left her husband, Ernest Wishart, and her children and set up home with Lee in a small flat in Bloomsbury. She returned to her husband in 1939, after bearing Lee’s daughter, Yasmin, who was brought up as part of the Wishart family. Yasmin only learned Lee was her real father when she was twenty-one. Lorna’s affair with Lee continued nonetheless. Hunched in a caravan or the back bedroom of a Bognor semi, Lee would wait for her to roll up in her Bentley, showering him with gifts of champagne, goose eggs, and ‘an edifying fragrance of irresistible passion’ – only for her to race back hours later to her life of domesticity and chic. They continued to see each other until 1943, when she fell for the painter Lucien Freud, then twenty, whom Lawrence Gowing described as ‘fly, perceptive, lithe, with a hint of menace’. ‘This mad, unpleasant youth appeals to a sort of craving she has for corruption.’ Lee wrote in his diary, ‘She goes to him when I long for her.’ In time Freud too disappeared from the scene. Bizarrely, with Lorna Wishart’s encouragement, Laurie Lee later married one of her nieces, while Freud went on to marry the other. She was born Lorna Garman on 12th January 1911, the daughter of a wealthy, brutal doctor, and his Irish wife. Strictly brought up and unhappy at boarding school, she jumped over the school tennis net with glee when she realised – aged twelve – that the death of her father meant she had to leave. At fourteen she met Ernest Wishart, a Cambridge law student. Wishart was a Communist, but a rich one. His father, Colonel Sir Sidney Wishart, had extensive estates in Sussex. Lorna married at sixteen and had her first son, Michael at seventeen. Despite her affairs, it was Wishart to whom Lorna always returned and who ultimately gave her the stability she needed. After leaving Lucien Freud, Lorna Wishart converted to Roman Catholicism and returned for good to her husband’s Sussex home where she sculpted and cultivated a garden. Births 1873 – Spyridon Louis 1930 – Tim Horton 1944 – Joe Frazier 1951 – Kirstie Alley Deaths 1976 – Agatha Christie 2017 – William Peter Blatty 2017 – Graham Taylor #vss365 A short story in 280 characters or less, based on a prompt word on Twitter As she sat in the chair unable to move revelling in her #languor brought on by the hit of the drug, she thought it was the best she had ever felt. It would be the last she ever felt as well, as her daughter had laced the drugs with poison. It was time for her inheritance. #vss365 Joke Two prawns were swimming around in the sea, one called Justin and the other called Kristian. The prawns were constantly being harassed and threatened by sharks that inhabited the area. Finally, one day Justin said to Kristian, “I’m fed up with being a prawn, I wish I was a shark and then I wouldn’t have any worries about being eaten”. A large mysterious cod appeared and said, “Your wish is granted.” Lo and behold Justin turned into a shark. Horrified, Kristian immediately swan away, afraid of being eaten by his old friend. Time passed (as it does) and Justin found like as a shark boring and lonely. All his old chums simply swam away whenever he came close to them. Justin gradually realised that his new menacing appearance was the cause of his sad plight. While swimming alone one day he saw the mysterious cod again and he thought perhaps the mysterious fish could change him back into a prawn. He approached the cod and begged to be changed back and lo and behold he found himself turned back into a prawn. With tears of joy in his tiny little eyes, Justin swam to Kristian’s home. As he opened the coral gate, memories came flooding back. He banged on the door and shouted, “It’s me Justin, your old friend, come out and see me again.” Kristian replied, “No way man, you’ll eat me. You’re now a shark, the enemy, and I will not be tricked into being your dinner.” Justin cried back, “No, I’m not. That was the old me I’ve changed. I’ve found cod, I’m a prawn again Kristian.” Drabble A drabble is a complete story that is exactly one hundred words long. Now Listen Up She shouted out in frustration; her earphones had disappeared off the side again. The damn lodger had no concept of personal items or even ownership, he was forever taking items that were not his and using them in such a way that no one else would want to touch them again afterwards. She went to retrieve her earphones. He was lying on the bed, with the pods in his ears and his eyes closed. She would need new headphones yet again, but the lodger would not be taking them in the future. She had strangled him with the last set. Random Items Facts Ingrown toenails are hereditary Almonds are members of the peach family The symbol on the "pound" key (#) is called an octothorpe Thoughts When someone asks you, "a penny for your thoughts" and you put your two cents in what happens to the other penny? And if one synchronized swimmer drowns, must the rest drown also? If the #2 pencil is the most popular, why is it still #2? Never Eat Shredded Wheat – Weird Ways to Remember Things Some mnemonics work by telling a story or can be reinforced by the use of a narrative. For instance, the acrostic Happy Henry Likes Beer But Could Not Order For Nine Is used to remember the first ten elements: Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, Beryllium, Boron, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Fluorine and Neon. You can reinforce your ability to recall this story if you remember Happy Henry and his friends walking into a bar, in three rows of three people, and the barman refusing to serve him beer for them all. Savoir Faire – 1,000+ Foreign Words and Phrases You Should Know to Sound Smart Absit omen \ ahb-sit oh-men \ (Latin) “May this not be an omen.” This is used when something foreboding happens. It is a plea for divine protection against the terrible thing you fear is to come. Strumpshaw, Tincleton & Giggleswick’s Marvellous Map of Great British Place Names Entries from the map of rude and odd place names of Great Britain. Cocking This part of West Sussex is a hotspot for amusing place names with a euphemistic quality very much in the mould of the Carry On films (one of which had its scenes filmed on the Sussex coast). The village of Cocking lends its name to nearby infrastructure such as Cocking Causeway and Cocking Tunnel, and joining in the bawdy seaside postcard fun in the vicinity are Lickfold, Titty Hill and Bushy Bottom. The South Downs national park is not just a pretty place…it’s an innuendo admirer’s utopia.